Do you believe in mental causation?

quoting myself, from the other thread, in case there might be one or two people who look at this but not that:
My first reaction is, of course, to raise my hand wildly and shout "me! Meeeeee!". But let's look at this...


In order to demonstrate causality, one would have to, at a bare minimum, employ some sort of ABAB reversal design, to see whether X happens when consciousness is present and does not when it is absent. Problem is, there are precious few ways of rendering one unconscious, and all of them that I know of remove more than just consciousness (actually, I am going out on a limb saying that--I am taking some here at their word that "consciousness" is more than thinking, or seeing, or hearing, or remembering....). How is it that you folk are all so confident? Have you ever been without consciousness, but with all these other things? What exactly, if consciousness is causally efficacious, does consciousness cause? How is it that you have determined that it causes this, without the ability to manipulate the presence and absence of consciousness independently of other variables?

I have seen some studies (correlational only, I am afraid) which look at "awareness" (of some aspect of a picture, for instance) as correlated with various nerve cell responses. But in that case, responding to something and "being aware" of it were conflated, with awareness being circularly defined from response. If we only know awareness from responding to something, how can we say we respond because we are aware? That is circular reasoning.

Why do you all think consciousness is efficacious? Because it feels that way? Sorry, that does not cut it. It is a simple matter nowadays to show that seemingly unitary experiences are multiply processed, and that privately different experiences may be the result of a single processing pathway doing double duty. Introspection is a terrible way to determine whether consciousness is efficacious; any assumed finding could just as easily be an artifact of the methodology.

So...do I think consciousness is causally efficacious? I suppose me only honest answer is "the question is meaningless as I see it."
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You have no right to an opinion if, in fact you don't believe you have one. Doesn't that just piss you off to have someone come along and say that? ;)
 
Iacchus said:
You have no right to an opinion if, in fact you don't believe you have one. Doesn't that just piss you off to have someone come along and say that? ;)
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Gee, Iacchus...define "right" and tell us where you think they come from.
 
Interesting Ian said:
What's a metaphysical brain state when it's all at home?

Stating that mental states are one and the same thing as brain states goes beyond any empirical data. At the very most we only have correlations (and even that's questionable). Again, at most, correlations between 2 apparent existents suggests a causal relationship. To say they are identical goes beyond any possible empirical evidence. It is stating something which cannot in principle be justified by science. It is a metaphysical stance.
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Hmm... ok... that makes sense the way you explain it.

Stipulated and agreed: Stating (at this time) that mental and physical states of the brain are synonomous is speculative. :)
 
Mercutio said:
Gee, Iacchus...define "right" and tell us where you think they come from.
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Yes, but what in effect you're saying, is that people don't have a right to maintain their own opinion, due to the fact that they have no free will. And I think a lot of people would take exception to this. I mean who the hell cares what you think? It doesn't really mean anything does it?
 
Because this is indeed the thread for the question, I'll repeat my answer to Mercutio in this thread.
Mercutio said:
...Why do you all think consciousness is efficacious? Because it feels that way?
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I think so because I believe nothing but physics is going on in my mind. If my consciousness is a chain of cause and effect itself, it seems to me very plausible that it causes other stuff to happen.
I agree that it's not necesssarily true, nor am I sure if cause and effect are anything but convenient labels for certain events in physics. But what the hell do you expect from an engineering student?
 
So, why do people get angry, if they didn't think something wasn't in violation of their rights? Would you get angry, if I blatanty came out and said you didn't have the right to think the way you do? ... And, that from now on you can only think and behave in a certain way? Hmm ... Why does this begin to sound so much like the other guys? ;) Perhaps because we're speaking of one and the same, "mind control?"
 
Interesting Ian said:
By mental causation I mean that our intentions/desires etc are actually causally efficacious in themselves and bring about appropriate behaviour.
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II,
What does appropriate mean here? What account do you offer of intention/desire ( not the same thing , by the way) and the appropriate behaviour for the intention/desire in question?

Regards,
LMoG
 
Iacchus said:
So, why do people get angry, if they didn't think something wasn't in violation of their rights? Would you get angry, if I blatanty came out and said you didn't have the right to think the way you do? ... And, that from now on you can only think and behave in a certain way? Hmm ... Why does this begin to sound so much like the other guys? ;) Perhaps because we're speaking of one and the same, "mind control?"
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As I said in another thread, read "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" and, if you understand it, your question will be answered and I will be perfectly willing to discuss it further with you. The book is not merely tangentially related to the topic; it speaks directly to it, so if you truly are interested in the question you ask, that would be the place to go. If you are merely interested in an exercise in mental masturbation, please continue as you were.
 
On the mental states=brain states, show me an instance of a mental state absent a brain state and you will have my support.

As to if mental states are causaly efficasious?

I voted yes, because I belive that in a deterministic system there is chaos and therefore the apprearance of free will.

I also believe that there is this stuff called 'cognitive behavioral therapy' whereby one learns to adjust mental patterns and therefore learns to adjust the world of thier interior.

Are mental states absolutely efficasious, no.
 
Ian said:
I have no idea what it means to say they are brain states. Even if they were identical we then we have the problem of deciding whether it means the mental is reducible to the physical, or the physical reducible to the mental.
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Only you have this problem, Ian. Most of us realize that the two situations are equivalent, and so do not care.

At least, I realize that. :D

~~ Paul
 
Interesting Ian said:
By mental causation I mean that our intentions/desires etc are actually causally efficacious in themselves and bring about appropriate behaviour.
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I voted yes, but then again I believe that intentions/desires are themselves caused by other things.
 
Mercutio said:
As I said in another thread, read "Beyond Freedom and Dignity" and, if you understand it, your question will be answered and I will be perfectly willing to discuss it further with you. The book is not merely tangentially related to the topic; it speaks directly to it, so if you truly are interested in the question you ask, that would be the place to go. If you are merely interested in an exercise in mental masturbation, please continue as you were.
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No, I don't need your book to tell me which side my toast is buttered on. Thanks anyway. ;) As for the mental masturbation notion, is this just another of those coercive tacticts used for those folks who "won't" -- hmm, I wonder what that smacks of? -- get with the program? Why do you feel the need to discredit me in this regard? Obviously I'm not going to agree with you. Is this all it takes? Does what I say threaten you that much? Oops, there goes all our neat and tidy little theories by wayside. Yep, only to discover that the whole thing is nothing but a falsehood and a big sham. So, do you think you can handle that?
 
Oh P.S. Why don't you deny the fact that "you" exist while you're at it. That's the only "choice" you have without a God!
 
OK Ian. Forget about whether or not intentions are brain states. One still has to ask what you mean when you say "intentions", before your question can be answered.

For example, when I say "My intention to move my leg", what I mean is literally "the set of thoughts which caused my leg to move".

As you know, I think that thoughts are brain processes. But that's not important here. The point is that I am not defining "intentions" to be brain processes. I am defining them to be thoughts, specifically the thoughts which cause actions.

That said, using my definition, saying that intentions are causally efficacious is a trivial tautology. The very fact that you would ask whether they are or not, implies that you have something very different in mind when you say "intentions" than I do.

So the question is, what do you mean by "intentions"? I haven't the slightest idea, and if past experience is any indicator, I doubt very much that you will be able to coherently explain what you mean by the term.


Dr. Stupid
 
Iacchus said:
Why don't you deny the fact that "you" exist while you're at it. That's the only "choice" you have without a God!
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There, I've just proven that God exists. Unless you think you can continue shoving this pablum that "the self" doesn't exist down our throats. So, where's my million bucks!
 
Stimpson J. Cat said:
OK Ian. Forget about whether or not intentions are brain states. One still has to ask what you mean when you say "intentions", before your question can be answered.

For example, when I say "My intention to move my leg", what I mean is literally "the set of thoughts which caused my leg to move".
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It is the set of thoughts where one wishes certain actions of ones body to be carried out. Strictly speaking your definition begs the question.
 
Ian,

For example, when I say "My intention to move my leg", what I mean is literally "the set of thoughts which caused my leg to move".
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It is the set of thoughts where one wishes certain actions of ones body to be carried out. Strictly speaking your definition begs the question.
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No, claiming that my definition and your definition are referring to the exact same thing, would be begging the question. I have made no such claim. On the contrary, I do not think that they do refer to the same thing.

In fact, I would say that while what you are calling "intentions" here is certainly causally efficacious in the most general sense (that they clearly do have some affect on your brain activity), that it is not always the case that the set of thoughts where one wishes certain actions of the body to be carried out are the actual cause of those specific actions being carried out. Indeed, I would say that this is an extremely oversimplified and naive view of the relationship between thought and bodily action.

So if this is what you mean by "mental causation", then no, I don't believe in mental causation. But that does not mean that I am an epiphenomenalist, because while I do not believe that the thoughts where you wish certain actions of your body to be carried out are the actual cause of those actions being carried out, there is no question that these thoughts do affect your behavior.


Dr. Stupid
 
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